We spent two full days in Cambodia and were kept so busy that I haven’t had time or energy to update the blog. We just arrived in Vietnam and have an hour bus from the airport to lunch, so I am going to try to catch up.

One of the most striking aspects of our time in Cambodia was recognizing the resiliency of the people. Our local guide shared freely about his life. He was a child during the Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979). Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, initiated a genocide that killed over 1/4 of the population (estimated 1.5 – 3 million people died) of Cambodia at that time. That people survived the starvation, disease, forced labour, and the social destruction of the times is amazing. Cambodian society was deeply damaged and recovery is ongoing. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, physical recovery from the devastation of war and the remnants of war, such as landmines was needed. The country was poor and few professionals of any kind remained. The entire country needed to reboot. Our guides focused specifically on how far Cambodia has come in the almost 50 years since the defeat of the Khmer Rouge. Little information was provided to us about how reconciliation efforts have occurred.

We started our journey into Cambodia by stopping at the Angkor Ticket Centre. Each 3-day pass cost $62USD with $2 from each ticket going to fund a children’s hospital in the area. We then checked into our hotel, had lunch by the pool, went for a swim and then watched a documentary on Cambodia before dinner. This prepped us for what we would see over the next two days.

On our first stop was Ta Prohm temple, also known as the jungle temple was built in the 1100’s and later abandoned and left as ruins, allowing the giant kapok trees and strangler figs to take over. It was overgrown by the jungle until it was “rediscovered” by Europeans in the late 1800’s. Archeologists decided it was best to leave the temple “as is” and only cleared trees from a portion of the site. The film Laura Croft:Tomb Raider was filmed here.

Despite the overgrowth, the carvings on some of the ruins were fantastic.

Our next stop of the day was Banteay Srei. It was built in the 10th century and originally dedicated to a Hindu god. It is also called the “woman’s temple” because it is so beautiful.

92% of Cambodians follow Theravada Buddhism, a form that arose in the 13th century and emphasizes monastic life, Pali scripture and meditation. The temples, such as this one were originally inspired by Hindu teachings and beliefs, shifting over time to reflect Buddhist beliefs. For example, the our guide showed us this carving and told us the story it depicted.

The Hindu god Brahma (god of creation) and the demon king were at odds. The demon king wanted revenge on Vishnu so he pretended that he wanted to follow Vishnu. Initially Brahma didn’t believe the demon king and kept denying him the opportunity. The demon king persisted and eventually Brahma relented and blessed the demon king with 5 gifts: that he couldn’t be killed by a man or animal or killed in a building or killed during the day or at night or killed in heaven or on earth or killed with a metal weapon. Once these blessings were received the demon turned on Brahma as was his original plan. Brahma seeing he had been tricked, got help from Shiva (the destroyer) and they figured out that to kill the demon they needed someone who was 1/2 human and 1/2 animal (I.e. as above/ man & lion) doing the deed at dawn, in a doorway space with a claw. The moral of the story is don’t mess with the gods (I may have gotten some of this story wrong (i.e., names, spelling, etc), but you get the gist.)

I took a million pictures at this site. The carvings were well preserved and beautiful in their detail.

Our next stop on this busy day was the Spitler School. This school was started by an American tourist who saw the need for the village to have their own school. This school has been operating since 2005 and currently has 1200 students in either primary or middle school (grade 1-9). It was fun to interact with the kids.

Our day ended with a dinner and cultural performances. We ate incredible food while watching a puppet play and traditional dancing.

The puppets were shadow puppets telling the epic story of Ramayana. We had heard the story before at one of the temples. It was fun to figure out what was happening. The puppets were made out of tooled leather and operated behind a large screen so we saw the shadow in action.

You may now understand why I am delayed in posting. We were exhausted in a good way by the end of this day. We crashed with the reality that we had a 4 am wake up call for the morning. Stay tuned for Cambodia Day 2.